Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Neuropathologic Change Is Not Associated With Suicide in Former Athletes.

Abstract

There are important knowledge gaps and misunderstandings relating to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). A systematic review and meta-analysis, published in April of 2025, was designed to examine the prevalence, risk factors, and potential outcomes of CTE neuropathologic change (CTE-NC) in former athletes and concluded that suicide was a potential outcome of CTE-NC (Qi et al., Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports. 2025;35(4):e70047). The review included eight eligible postmortem studies, four of which were used to estimate a possible association between the postmortem neuropathology and suicide as a manner of death. The authors of two of those four studies did not report a statistically significant association between suicide as the manner of death and having CTE-NC identified in brain tissue. In the largest of the four studies, the brain donors with CTE-NC were statistically significantly less likely to have suicide as their manner of death than donors who did not have CTE-NC. Considering the four studies included in the systematic review, other studies of CTE-NC not included in the review, and the broader literature relating to suicidality in former athletes, the best available evidence suggests that CTE-NC is not associated with depression, suicidality, or suicide.